


Possibilities of Steve and Bucky still being a couple after Endgame

by inasmiles



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Avengers: Endgame (Movie) Spoilers, Endgame Fix-It, M/M, Not a fan fiction - Freeform, Post-Canon Fix-It, recent interview of joe russo post endgame, steve and bucky can still be a couple in this and other universes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-30
Updated: 2019-04-30
Packaged: 2020-02-10 08:07:35
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,754
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18656389
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/inasmiles/pseuds/inasmiles
Summary: spoilers alert of courseAs a Stucky shipper, i simply cannot accept that Steve went back to marry Peggy. So below are some theories to persuade myself that the end in endgame is not what we think it is. I didn't think of all of them. A lot of them i read about and thought made sense. People tweet and retweet, sometimes people concur in thoughts, so i don't know the original source of these theories and i'm just here to share.These theories and possibilities are not a coherent whole so they may contradict each other. You may pick one to explore if you are interested.





	Possibilities of Steve and Bucky still being a couple after Endgame

**First something from the directors.**

 

Let me begin by saying that when Joe Russo was promoting Civil War in China, he was asked by a reporter whether the "gay relationship" between Steve and Bucky would continue in Civil War (It was actually a mistranslation, the reporter intended to say bromance, but it was translated into gay relationship), and Joe said that they as directors wouldn't define the relationship, that they'd try to keep it open and fans can have their own interpretations.

Maybe for that reason, we have this shot below, with the (LGBT) rainbow on Steve and Bucky in infinity war.

 <https://twitter.com/ina11110/status/1123207980789321730/photo/1>

 

 

And there’s rainbow on Steve’s face at the end of endgame when he’s holding Peggy. Very brief but VERY BIG rainbow. I have it on photo but I’m not sure if I can post it here. If you leave your email I’d be happy to send it to you.

After endgame, Joe Russo agreed to a telephone interview by a Chinese website, which later published the transcript of the interview (in Chinese). One question was (and I translate): Since Peggy would be already married in 1970, then which year did Cap travel back to for the dance with his girl?  Joe Russo: That I can't answer, since it happened in another time line. Maybe we'll know the answer in the future. 

(Joe didn’t confirm that Steve married Peggy and stayed with her all those years, simply suggesting anything’s possible)

Another question: Will Cap’s action at the end affect the story line? Will there be two Caps in this universe? Joe Russo: the way I see it, it’s not about Cap trying to change things, but him making a choice. When he went back in time, he chose a happier life: spending his life with the person he loved. Time traveling created this alternate reality, and he had a completely different life. Who knows what that life’s gonna be like? I would like to believe that he continued to help people in that life.

(Joe used gender neutral words to talk about the one Cap spent his life with. He also said we wouldn’t know what that life’s like. So I would like to think there’s a stucky possibility. “Continue to help people” suggested that it wouldn’t be just a life of leisure and fun and stability, possibly Cap would still be his old self.)

 

**And then back to the movie.**

Mentionings of Peggy in this movie seem pasted on and contextually out of place.

  **Example 1** : Shortly into the movie with a self-help group discussing loved ones they lost to THE SNAP, including Joe’s character talking about his male lover. Cap suddenly started talking about Peggy. Wasn’t that off topic? Wouldn’t it make more sense to talk about Bucky and Sam, the ones that died in THE SNAP, and not someone whose death had nothing to do with the snap? Some might say he used Peggy’s example to show people how he moved on. OK, if he’d already moved on from Peggy, then it surely invalidates his choice at the end. Also I should point out when he later said to Natasha, people move on, but not us. He’s clearly talking about not giving up on the ones who turned into ashes and trying to bring them back, not “not moving on from my old flame who died a natural death several years ago”. They are really two different things.

 BTW, Cap’s Peggy line: I went under ice in 1945, right after I met the love my life. Isn’t that sentence inherently paradoxical? If you left her “right after” you met her, how would you know she’s “the love of your life”?

 

 **Example 2** : in the spaceship, Cap’s looking at Peggy’s photo. Natasha said it’ll work, Cap said I know it will cos’ I don’t know what I’d do if it doesn’t. Honestly, if one hadn’t watched infinity war, one’d assume that the girl in the photo died in the snap and if they made it work they’d bring her back.

In Endgame almost every avenger has a personal reason for fighting this desperate situation, which the movie showed very clearly to make the audience relate to them more. Hawk eye’s family is his personal reason, Spiderman is Tony’s personal reason, the avengers family is Natasha’s personal reason, the Asgardian people are Thor’s personal reason, even Nebula and Rocket Raccoon had their personal reasons. Steve surely has one as well, be it Bucky or Sam, but these two were unthinkably and conspicuously absent from Cap’s mind, especially Bucky. Later when everyone’s reuniting with their personal reason, getting emotional, Cap and Bucky didn’t so much as look at each other. That, felt intentional. So when Cap keeps looking at Peggy’s photo instead, thinking of her, it just baffled me. It just doesn’t make sense. In the Winter Soldier and Civil War, in Avengers 1-3, he’s never needed to see Peggy’s face for inspiration to fight. He’s started seeing other people, he kissed Sharon and it’s not even his first kiss since 1945. Why is he all of a sudden so hung up on Peggy???

I think it’s just lame attempts to create a reason, which didn’t exist before, for Cap to permanently retire, as Chris Evans is retiring from MCU. And Marvel decides for some reason to tone down on Steve/Bucky relationship. Hence the heavy-handed insertion of Peggy.  The out-of-place-ness of this insertion shouts the non-existence of it. Remove it and everything makes more sense. Even better, replace Peggy bits with Bucky bits and it fits into the movie perfectly: at the self-help meeting, Joe talking about his male lover, Cap talking about Bucky, as both had died in the snap; in the spaceship, Cap looking at Bucky’s photo as he is trying everything to bring him back. Maybe that’s a hidden plot line, depending on what you believe, depending on whether you see it with both your eyes and your heart.

Anyway, this is what Marvel wants: Steve (Pacific Ocean) Bucky---- _(at the premiere of Endgame)_

and this is what I want:

******Now about the ending**. Even with palpable impositions to bend the Cap story arc towards a Steve/Peggy ending, the logic of the movie suggests other possibilities.

  1. Steve only danced with Peggy and didn’t marry her. The movie said clearly that the stone could only be put back at the time and location it had been taken. And in 1970 when the stone was taken, Peggy would already be married. In the Winter Solider, Peggy said one of the soldiers in 107th who were rescued by Cap when he was rescuing Bucky would later become her husband. Cap also saw photos of Peggy’s children. We saw Peggy’s husband Daniel in the TV series Agent Carter, and it’s not Cap. Would Peggy leave her husband to be with Cap? Would Cap wreck a happy family to fulfill a distant regret in his romantic life? And remember they hadn’t even started dating in WWII. I guess every one has their own answer.
  2. In the beginning of Endgame we see Cap already had a streak of graying hair. But in the dance with Peggy, he looked younger and no graying hair. Could this be a subtle way of suggesting that an ending with Peggy could only happen with a younger Cap and Peggy, not them after everything they each went through? Therefore what we think we saw in the ending is just a well wishing dream and couldn't have really happened?
  3. Cap could go rescue the frozen Cap in that time line, and rescue the winter soldier from hydra, and many things can happen from there. Of course what happened in that time line doesn’t change the main time line, but it’s still worth trying.
  4. Old Cap said he didn’t PLAN on staying before he went. Let’s believe that he’s not lying, then what prompted him to stay? Is it seeing Peggy’s face? He already saw Peggy the first time he was stealing the stone, and that didn’t give him ideas to make a plan for coming back to her. How come the second time he suddenly became so imaginative and acted on it impulsively? I think it’s possible that something happened and he had to intervene, leading to his staying. For example when he’s putting the stone back, hydra sent someone to kill Peggy, and he had to intervene. Better yet, something involving the winter soldier made him intervene, maybe that assassin was the winter soldier or maybe he saw the winter soldier being brainwashed and experimented on (the scene where Howard is looking for Zola may be hinting at something). So Cap stayed first by happenstance and then by choice.
  5. I’ve heard people say Bucky had his hands in the pockets when old Cap was back. So maybe there’s a ring on his finger, and that’s why Cap wouldn’t talk about “her” with Sam. I don’t know how it would work, but it'd be a nice reversion of the First Avenger: When Bucky said don't do anything stupid till I come back, Cap did something "stupid" and it brought Cap to Bucky. This time Cap said don't do anything stupid till I come back, maybe Bucky did something "stupid", bringing him to Cap in that other time line? After all, Bucky also missed 70 years of his life. If Cap chose to come back to his era, then Bucky could understandably make the same choice. There are still holes in this theory, but maybe fan-fic writers can make it work.
  6. Steve could dance with Peggy and leave, not changing anything in that time line. Then he could go find the winter soldier and help him in small ways secretly, without changing  anything. He could feed him food and water, he could clean his wound when he passed out, etc, just to be with him. I'm sure Cap had wished he were there for Bucky when he learned of Bucky's experience in the past 70 years. I know this is angsty fan-fic material, but still possible in the movie's framework. 



 

So basically that’s what I’ve been reading and thinking about since I saw Endgame. I went from shell-shocked to depressed to anxious to sad acceptance to desperately grasping at anything that will hold, and that’s where I am now. so if you want to see a stucky happy ending and you have other theories or perspectives, feel free to drop a comment.

 

 


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